Last year I said I didn’t know if I would make the list again, but guess what? Tis the season for the AACC Annual Conference and my list is back for the 6th year. I was unsure what my time would be like this past year as I was publishing my first book but that turned out great and my concerns about being overbooked (Yes, I did use the same pun as last year) turn out to not be that big of a deal.  I now have a few books available on Amazon and continue to compile my research and will publish my second nonfiction story in 2019.  

Now back to Twitter.   It seems in the past couple years; prominent public figures have leveraged Twitter more than ever to communicate with their constituents.  I hope that publishing this list again provides additional insight into how the modern community college president informs. Political figures on both sides of the political spectrum,  whether you agree with them or not have changed how this tool is used and how they distribute information. I would encourage anyone who is in a position of leadership to continue to learn how to use this tool strategically.      There is no doubt that these public figures have changed how information is pushed to the public forever.

There were several retirements this past year, and in spite of that, the list has grown again.  Some of you recall I only did the Top 12 Tweeting Presidents in 2014, because barely that many community college presidents were tweeting at the time.  My total list of community college presidents tweeting, even with retirements and a couple which have stopped tweeting, the list sits at 87 this year.  What is even more amazing is that I am sure I missed someone.

I am going to give kudos to one of the retirees, Ronnie Nettles, who tweeted as president for Copiah-Lincoln Community College.  He was on my list every year and did a marvelous job of communicating with his constituents. I wish him the very best. I am going to note of two of my favorite tweeting community college leaders who are not included in the top twenty list.  I chose to include only presidents of individual institutions rather than state systems so Dr. Kris Williams, Chancellor (Chief Academic Officer) for the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, and Dr. Jim Henderson,  President of the University of Louisiana System, are not on the list.  With that said, “they do Twitter right,” and I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Henderson this past, so it is a privilege to recognize him here.

I am again confident this very social group of community college presidents will keep everyone informed on the happenings at the 2019 annual @aacc meetings just as they keep their respective institutions informed via social media. The presidents listed are on the list because they use Twitter to create a unique social relationship with their campus constituents.  I use a formula which I developed in 2014 which takes into account factors beyond the number of tweets. A couple of years ago I tweaked it slightly as Twitter now allows you to create Moments.  So presidents who have Twitter moments get points for using that part of the resource as well.  I also give Kent Points. Those are for stuff I like such as having fly-fishing listed in their profile.  Fly-fishing hasn’t helped anyone get on the must follow list, but hey it is my list so I might as well have some fun with it!  I also must confess Dr. Linda Lujan, from Lamar Community College in Southeast Colorado, got a Kent Point because LCC was my first encounter with higher education when I was a high school sophomore or junior attending business contests hosted on that campus.  I certainly didn’t know what a treasure that institution is to SE Colorado or what a service the Community College provides throughout this country of ours. Therefore I was very excited to add Dr. Lujan to the list. She also, “does Twitter right.”

In its 6th year  I continue to think the categories surrounding the cumulative data is beginning to shed some light on how this tool is used for communication by these presidents, so I have continued to categorizing usage as follows:

1. The Student Helper – They seem to focus on using the tool to engage with students
2. The Lurker –  Lots of likes and retweets.  They don’t tweet a lot, but they are watching
3. The College Booster  – Lot’s of tweeting about college events. It is obvious they love supporting encouraging their college constituents via Twitter
4. The Undecided – Very inconsistent both in volume and content.  It is obvious they only log on every once in a while and are probably thinking…”Is this a good idea or not”
5. The Shotgun Approach  – The content is quite varied.  Lot’s of college stuff, lots of personals, and lots of community.  I don’t think this is necessarily bad, but certainly
6. The Strategist – The content is college focused,  combines aspects of being a student helper, a lurker, a college booster and a smattering of the shotgun approach to their tweets.

I am not quite sure if I will ever name names under the above categories, but is indeed evident to me from watching over the past five or six years the approach by different presents to using the tool is entirely different.

Here are a couple of other observations

1. I had a couple of ties in scoring, so I expanded the list this year to 20.  Maybe it stays that way, perhaps it doesn’t, but there was such a tight bunching in a couple of spots I just expanded it to 20.
2. Steve Robinson’s #endccstigma is my favorite Twitter campaign by a community college president since starting this list. Thanks, President Robinson.
3. I added nearly twice as many community college CEO’s (26) to the list the past two years than were tweeting in 2013-2014.
4. Ten (10) Presidents who have been on my list have moved on to other things; eight have retired.
5. One of the most interesting trends in my data relate to presidents (12) who once tweeted have stopped.  Some have simply quit tweeting. Others are still engaging (aka lurking) by following new people and liking tweets, but they have stopped sending out their own tweets.  It is clear that many are monitoring social media even if they are not engaged.
6. Two presidents have substantially fewer tweets than last year, which means they deleted a portion of their tweets.  They are also among the ones who stopped tweeting. I suspect that subset had a little extra scrutiny over the content.  

When I first published that list, there were only a dozen or so Community College Presidents Tweeting and only a half dozen doing it effectively.  I felt it was essential to support the effective use of the tool for community college leadership. That has changed and grown, and many community college CEOs who understand the benefits and power of social collaboration and how it’s used to communicate and collaborate with campus constituents.  The pioneers among Community College Presidents utilizing this mode of communication in my estimation were,  Anne Kress @MCCPresident,  Margeret McMenamin @drmcm, and Karen Stout @drkastout (no longer a president, but still tweeting about Achieve the Dream).  They were the subject of a blog post I wrote a few years back called, “My Three Tweeting Presidents” based on a presentation those three did at AACC.  Thanks for communicating with all of us. I for one appreciate your work.

As for tweeting at @aacc here is the list of newcomers to my list followed by the entire list.  I hope this helps you in knowing which community college presidents to follow on Twitter. Happy tweeting to all of you.  I have learned so much from each of you. Thank you for sharing.

New to the list for 2019:

Here  is my entire list:

Here are the additions to the list I have received from AACC 2019 which will be on my 2020 listing.

I was just thinking when I got my invite to evaluate the Executive Forum …… hmmm what are my takeaways this time? This was my 7th or 8th  Executive Forum, following a 15 run at a school that used a competing ERP product so I think I have some perspective on all of this.  What should I say that I didn’t say during the event on my Twitter Feed? Also, since we are in New Orleans I will frame my thoughts with a bit of a local flavor. I am both Jazzed by what I heard as well as having  a bit of the Blues. I will summarize my Key Takeaways and then explain (at least partially)

1. Don’t be afraid of listening to new ideas.
2. Always separate the individuals you are dealing with from the corporation.
3. The effort to communicate accurately the direction of the company is much better than it was.
4. The people you connect with are really what matters.
5. You should disagree once in a while.

I continue to understand more and more how ERP is like that 1958 horror flick “Beware of the Blob,” The basic setting and theme of the show was,

Outside a small Pennsylvania town, a meteorite falls from the sky in the dead of night. From within emerges a gelatinous, alien mass – an organism that grows inside and threatens to consume everything in its path.     

That is exactly what technology and ERP software looks like … an amorphus ever-expanding and all-consuming amoeba from outer space consisting of a bloated bureaucratic  mass. This mass without apparent shape or form gives you the  day-to-day grind of policy battles, firefighting and political encounters over the trival.  This really can start to cut you off from outside ideas and thinking. This is exactly why you come to this event in spite of any other factor I mention from this point forward.  This provides my Executive Forum TakeAway Number one.

Don’t be afraid of listening to new ideas. You don’t even have to agree with all the ideas you hear but you should listen. If we all can actually get to where the success stories on stage are, you will be doing right by our students.  That is really the only true measure that matters….is what you are doing good for your students

When you deal with a company as large as Ellucian entity seems it too can seem like the blob.  In the past I have been tossed here and yonder trying to resolve an issue and eventually in many cases have simply gone a different path.    I try to be open to the fabulous success stories that are presented on stage but when you leave the presentations and break bread with colleagues from across the country during the meals you often hear the frustration of the spotlight and stage rhetoric not lining up with your experience with the company.  

My experience and / or observation is a revolving door of account execs, confusion over who my account rep is, RFPs not responded to,  service requests dragging out for months, being billed for attempting to scope a project.

Yes the corporate right hand hasn’t always known what the corporate left hand was doing but in spite of those frustrations always treat the individuals in a civil manner.  I don’t recall ever meeting an individual employee who I did not like or who in their own way was not trying to do their best. Executive Forum TakeAway Number Two.

Always separate the individuals you are dealing with from the corporation.

When I attended my first elive the executive forum  it was downright ugly. The “event was cool ( That is the one that had for entertainment the full circus with a sword swallower, a fire eating dwarf, carnivalish stuff and more) but the executive forum was not.  I was sitting at a table with friends and colleagues from a huge Ellucian client. One slide came up about a change that was going to occur which would cost them millions upon millions of dollars. I thought my friends head was going to explode.  I don’t think the roadmaps and timetables we seen now are always accurate, but I do think there is an effort to get to a more accurate picture of the truth. Perfect? Not by a long shot, but much better than 7 or 8 years ago. Executive Forum TakeAway Number Three.

The effort to communicate accurately the direction of the company is much better than it was.

I really don’t care much about the technology anymore.  You might say, oh your just too busy writing books and telling stories (yes this link is my one shameless plug in this post for my books).  That isn’t it at all. It is all about people. I am usually impressed by the passion individual people have for their jobs and their commitment to doing a really good job for their institution or company.  This goes for people at the colleges and universities, Ellucian employees, consultants and vendors. There are people who have a passion for jobs I can’t imagine being passionate about. I appreciate and am thankful for each of these.  The most important people in this are the students. I have learned, the view you have to operate from is how does this impact impact your students and their ability to achieve their dreams. Executive Forum TakeAway Number Four.

The people you connect with are really what matters.

I hope I don’t always agree with everything I hear at this meeting.  It is important to retain independent thought. I sometimes think there is not enough diversity of thought and ideas presented.  I understand Ellucian is trying to sell product and inspire us and that they are passionate about the software and the possibilities , but the fact is, it isn’t going as smoothly at many institutions as the panelists and presenters make it appear.  Deploying all of this stuff is really really really hard even when it goes well and it is not going well for many. Executive Forum TakeAway Number Five.

You should disagree once in a while.

Other things to continue to think about.

• Is rural in trouble
• How do you stabilize your IT environment so that your end user community can bring their ideas to your organizational table and create and innovate
• What is transformational technology?  

I probably missed something, but those are my quick thoughts and takeaways.  I am Jazzed about somethings I saw and have the Blues about others. Additionally, all of this sometimes oozes together like the blob from that 1958 movie.  Don’t let it. Remember most people are just trying to do their job and what is best for students. Do what’s best for students and everything else will work out.

“Failing to Prepare is Preparing to Fail”

Preparing for social media usage at a conference from the vantage point of  a presenter is a little different than as an attendee. Preparation is key if you want to enable your  audience to do the best job of sharing content from your session. If you want to share as a presenter, there are a few things you can do to make it easier for those attendees sharing via social media.  

Let People Know You are Coming. Share your presentation topic and your enthusiasm for said topic. Also provide logistics such as when and where the event is happening.

Provide your Twitter handle. You can help people do a good job tweeting your presentation by providing them your Twitter handle at the beginning of the session.  Provide your handle in your opening remarks and on your first slide. If you’re not on Twitter, it’s worth thinking about signing up, just so people can provide attribution for your work.

Provide the Conference Hashtag and Session Hashtag. Again, provide these at the beginning of your session to make it easier to share. Of course if they don’t know your conference hashtag by the time they are at your session it probably not going to matter anyway.

Upload your presentation to your website.  People often want a copy of your presentation.  You can go through the ol’ business card trading ritual  and email it…or you can prepare in advance. Upload your presentation to your website and then use a URL shortening tool such as:

bitly.com  
tinyurl.com.  

You can present them at the beginning with your twitter handle.  You can also provide them in a closing slide which allows attendees to easily tweet your session materials for others to access.   If you have uploaded the presentation to your conference web site share it prior the conference and during the conference with the conference hashtag.  

Don’t be the person who says….I know you can’t read this but….. The ending of this statement is either “I like myself so much I am going to show you illegible garbage anyway. ” or “I was too lazy to find a way to make this meaningful to my audience.” Use large strong visuals such as charts and tables to quickly explain the data at the heart of your presentation. Attendees are always looking for insight, sound bites, and key takeaways

Encourage Questions via Twitter  To take questions via twitter you may need a  device other than the one you’re presenting from with a tool such as Hootsuite which allows you to watch one or more twitter streams.  With the stream for your conference easily accessible you can watch for questions related to your session. There is a little bit of multitasking required if you are presenting alone, but it is doable.  Some people have no problem asking questions during a session, but sometimes using twitter you will get questions from a person who is unwilling to speak up in a crowd. If you have a co presenter, you can coordinate who will watch the twitter stream for questions.  I do acknowledge not all speakers do want to share outside of the confines of the meeting room.  However, extensive sharing via social media is becoming more and more commonplace.  The more prepared you are, the better the experience will be for those attending your session.

Have someone live tweet your session to share your content. Interested people can follow the back channel even if they’re not in attendance. I often have people ask me live tweet sessions. You need to assume that someone is interested in listening to yours.  

Expect to be tweeted. Twitter is used extensively at event and conferences these days. People assume that tweeting is fine unless they are specifically asked not to tweet. For example, I have been in sessions with specific vendors where they give you a sneak peek at a new technology.  Knowing I am a prolific event tweeter they have asked not to tweet a particular part of a discussion or presentation. If you are asked to not tweet a session, don’t. Show respect to those who wish not to be tweeted.